DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.
But Dick's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear of
recognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George provided
him, as advanced payment, out of his lordship's own wardrobe,--an
equipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. The
transformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedily
to Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. Dick was
then told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travel
that his lordship had promised to send to England. His lordship gave the
name to which these epistles were to be directed. Dick echoed back the
name, in astonishment:
"Miss Celestine Thorpe! Why, it seems to me I've heard--"
"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire and
renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say,
conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show
how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place
I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of
a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel
is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of
the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges
himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green
with jealousy."
Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of
the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have
been by them forgotten. Such is the world!
The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town of
France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely
pleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, and
historic chateau of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding
streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were
towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down
on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of
its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of
merchants, lawyers, abbes, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of
different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in
the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually
disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.
At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired
conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch
gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden
called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy,
drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and
partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town
small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the
Swiss frontier at Besancon, then noted for its university, its hospital,
its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its
perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the
river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.
Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, and
dining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains;
thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across the
Rhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim,
whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded Dick of
Philadelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses but
palaces and peasants' cottages,--for in most small German states the
gentry lived in the capitals and the merchant class in towns,--they went
by carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed with
priests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsy
with Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded to
Frankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, its
spacious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, its
multitude of Jews.
From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviate
of Hesse-Cassel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleys
and fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest and
most powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relations
with England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes;
but there was to that fact a circumstance with a different interest for
Dick Wetheral,--it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England,
and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against Dick's
countrymen.
Pushing on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid,
smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen entered
Cassel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening,
little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set foot
before the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that in
this capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life of
Dick Wetheral.
The next morning Dick stayed in the hotel to write Lord George's
journal up to date, while his lordship went out to visit the English
resident. Before noon Lord George returned.
"Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to Dick. "We are to dine
at the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Make
haste, you've barely time to change your clothes."
"But I am merely a secretary," objected Dick, who had no desire to enjoy
the hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.
"So much the more reason why you should see the Landgrave's court, to
write my description of it. Besides, no one will know you are my
secretary as well as my friend."
"But no one is permitted to appear at German courts who isn't noble."
"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not
towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this
is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I
must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of
travels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, which
doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."
Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave
Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was
also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause,
having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers through
his dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the more
cheerfully with Lord George's wish.
Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and
consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town,"
where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular
platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity
of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz,
one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their
carriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a large
Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space now
known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the new
town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a
summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a
menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now
occupying the winter palace.
The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order
for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large
decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups,
talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the
forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a
compound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed that
this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court
language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that the
use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was
for everything English; in Germany for everything French.
From the number of military officers present, it was evident that the
Landgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. Dick
made several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had first
approached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Another
was the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, a
witty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manner
acquired in Paris. A third--slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, with
brazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes--was Count Mesmer, one of his
highness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older ones
in the assemblage, Dick noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled,
crafty-looking sexagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein,
minister of police.
Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentleman
of medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearing
the Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a brief
but gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. He
had a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven,
his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who had
commanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had a
regiment in Hesse-Cassel's service; and, in due time, for the officious
Count Mesmer, by whom Lord George and Dick had the honor of being made
known to the Landgrave.
His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voice
still full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen.
While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and Dick hypocritically,
other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified,
large, and somewhat over-plump. Dick knew from the great respect with
which she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her,
that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting passed between
her and the Landgrave,--for, though it was but five years since
Frederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt,
he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his first
wife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also from
his son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count of
Hanau, and maintained there a little court.
Dick glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither as
piquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what an
ungallant American traveller wrote at that time--that at the German
courts beauty and butter alike were measured by the pound--were true, it
was to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiant
complexion, and something of a classic cast of countenance. But Dick's
gaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a face
that stood out from the others,--making them and all the world besides
fade into nothingness, while Dick, in doubt whether he was not dreaming,
forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherine
de St. Valier!
She saw him, looked slightly startled, then took on the faintest flush,
which passed immediately but left him with the happy assurance that he
was recognized. Half-way across the room as he was, he bowed low. She
slightly inclined her head, and hastened to the Landgravine, for whom
she had brought a forgotten handkerchief. She then went swiftly out by
the door at which all the ladies had entered.
The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and Dick had to
follow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine at
their highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as were
not under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guests
eating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But Dick
took no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which was
constrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of their
highnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was not
present. Dick continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be an
inmate of the palace of Cassel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he had
time in which to repeat this question to himself many times. After
dinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where it
had first assembled. Here he stood in a trance for a quarter of an hour,
and then, the Landgrave having left the apartment, the company broke up.
"Let us hope we sha'n't be so bored at the masquerade to-night," said
Lord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank God when I
have put this stupid place far behind me."
"Stupid!" echoed Dick. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think of
leaving for some time."
"Why, this morning you were glad we were going at once to Berlin!"
"My dear Lord George, if you are determined to go at once to Berlin, I
beg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find you
another secretary here at Cassel."
"Why, I suppose I can easily find one. But are you serious? One would
suppose you had got some fat appointment in the court or the army, since
this morning."
"I wish I had, God knows,--or even a lean one,--but not in the army. I
would not go to fight against my--against the Americans."
"Oh, you wouldn't be sent to America. We should have to get you into one
of the household battalions,--not as an officer, of course; you know the
officers must be of the nobility, but there are gentlemen in the ranks
of every military body that is attached to a sovereign's person. There
are the body-guards, the foot-guards, the horse-guards, and other such
troops. Doubtless volunteers are very welcome. These German princes have
crimps all over Europe kidnapping men for their armies. Let us speak to
one of the various counts or barons we shall meet to-night."
"No, my lord, I would never serve this Landgrave as a soldier,--nor in
any other post, but for one reason."
His lordship, though puzzled, was too polite to ask what the reason was.
"Very well," said he, after a moment's silence, "we shall see to-morrow.
I shall try to lure away some under-clerk from a brilliant official
career, as my secretary, and to get you in his place,--if you continue
of the same mind."
"My lord, you are destined to be always my Good Samaritan," cried Dick,
his eyes suddenly moist with gratitude. He considered that, in occupying
a civil sinecure under the Landgrave, he would not in reality be serving
that virtual enemy to his country, but would be merely supporting
himself by means of that enemy; that is to say, he would be, in time of
necessity, existing at the expense of the foe, according to the custom
of war. Moreover, his position might enable him to serve his country
directly, by giving him early intelligence of future movements by
Hessian troops, and, perhaps, of future intentions of England.
They drove to a costumer's, obtained dominoes, and, at six o'clock,
returned to the palace, where they found the gentlemen of the court all
in dominoes, the ladies in ordinary ball dress. Card tables had been
set, and the Landgrave played at cavaniolle with a rather talkative
party of about a dozen members, while the Landgravine took a hand at
quadrille with a trio of her own choosing. A number of players occupied
tables in adjoining rooms. Dick helped make up a game at which Captain
von Romberg and two placid, apple-cheeked baronesses were the other
participants, but his eyes roved from his cards, in vain search of
Catherine.
While the games were going on, a gentleman passed around with a hat
containing small tickets. Each lady took one of these, when the hat was
offered her, and then similar tickets were drawn by the gentlemen. Dick
saw that his ticket bore the number twenty-three, and he learned from
the talk of his fellow players that the lady who had drawn the same
number would be his partner at supper and at the dance. Presently an
officer began calling out the numbers, a lady declaring herself at each
number, and a gentleman offering his arm to lead her out to supper.
"I wonder who has twenty-three," said Dick, indifferently, to Lord
George, who had meanwhile rejoined him.
"I can't tell you that," replied his lordship, "but I know who has my
number, seventeen. I happened to see her ticket, when she held it up to
the light. She is that splendid, dark-eyed creature, standing yonder
under the candles."
Dick's glance turned idly towards the indicated place. Suddenly he
became afire.
"My lord," he almost gasped, "be my Good Samaritan once again. Exchange
tickets with me, for heaven's sake!"
"Why, certainly. That gives me back the uncertainty to which this game
entitles me." And the exchange was quickly made.
"Seventeen," was called out, and Dick advanced, with beating heart, to
meet Catherine. She colored again--was it with pleasure?--as she took
his proffered arm. They walked in silence to the supper-room.
At supper there was more ease and animation than there had been at
dinner. This circumstance favored conversation between Dick and his
partner.
"I should not have expected to meet you so far from where I saw you
last," he began, in a low voice.
"Nor I to meet you," she replied, speaking without haste, and with the
gravity that characterized her.
"Oh, my coming here was a very simple matter. Sent to England as a
prisoner, I escaped to France, and there fell in with an English
nobleman, whose travels brought him this way. I am his secretary. It is
not known I am an American."
"My coming here was quite as simple," said she, with a slight smile. "My
brother and I came to France to receive a small bequest left by a cousin
of my mother's. In Paris we met a distant relation,--one of the ladies
of her highness the Landgravine. When she returned to Cassel, she
obtained for me a post as lady-in-waiting. French people are in request
at the German courts."
"And Monsieur Gerard?"
"My brother is in the foot-guards."
"I should like to see him," said Dick, and added, with special
intention, "I suppose he has forgotten me."
"Oh, no, monsieur," she replied, quite artlessly; "we have often talked
of you. Our gratitude for recovering the portrait, and risking your life
to bring it to us--"
"'Twas the opportunity of risking it to serve you, that made my life
worth having," he said, in a tone little above a whisper.
"My brother will be glad to learn that your life was surely saved," she
replied, avoiding Dick's glance.
"And you, who saved it?"
"I, too, of course."
The words were nothing, but the slight blush with which she uttered them
was eloquent.
After supper, all the company put on masks with which they had provided
themselves. The Landgravine was led to the ballroom by her partner, an
owlish colonel, and the other couples followed. Her highness stopped at
the upper end of the room, the second couple stopped immediately below
this, and at last there was a double file extending the length of the
hall. This arrangement seemed to promise a country-dance, but when the
music began, Dick found that a form of minuet was intended. When this
had been walked through, everybody sat down, except the Landgravine, who
then danced with several different gentlemen in succession.
After this there were minuets and country-dances. The company was
augmented by maskers from the town, some in fancy dresses; while several
who belonged to the court, having meanwhile slipped out, returned in
different costume, so as to be really disguised,--for on first entering
the masquerade-room, all were known, notwithstanding their masks.
Everybody was now on a footing, and the maskers mingled promiscuously.
But Dick remained with Catherine, who showed no desire for other
company. He thought himself in the midst of paradise, until suddenly she
said:
"Her highness is retiring. I must go."
"But, mademoiselle, the others are not going!"
"The others are not keepers of her highness's robes," said Catherine.
"But one moment! When may I see you again?"
"How can I say? My hours of duty are long. I am usually free in the
afternoon, from three to five o'clock. On occasions like this, sometimes
I attend her highness, sometimes I may do as I please."
"From three to five, you say. I suppose you remain in the palace then?"
"Except when I visit my brother. I must go now, monsieur. _Au revoir!_"
In a moment she was lost in the crowd. You may be sure much had been
said, between their opening colloquy at supper and their brief dialogue
at parting, to bring about the tacit understanding of a future meeting.
So she was in the habit of going to see her brother! Dick had learned
that the Prussian system was followed in Cassel,--that the troops,
instead of being lodged in barracks, were quartered with citizens. He
walked the next morning to the drill-ground and armory of the
foot-guards, and, happily meeting Captain von Romberg, learned where
Gerard had lodgings. He went immediately to the house, which was in a
street running east from the platz and through the southern extremity of
the old town. It was the house of a glover, whose shop was on the ground
floor. Gerard was out on duty.
Dick, finding that the guardsman occupied the first-floor room towards
the street, immediately hired a corresponding room in an obscure inn
across the way. He waited at the inn door till he saw Gerard, in
military coat and buff cross belt, coming down the street; he then
crossed over, with a preoccupied air, as if going about his business.
Looking up suddenly, as he came face to face with the soldier, Dick
pretended the greatest surprise at recognizing Monsieur de St. Valier.
The recognition was not mutual at first, but, as soon as Dick had
recalled himself to the other, the young Frenchman became instantly
cordial. A minute later the two were sitting in Gerard's room,
expressing wonder at the strange chance that had made Dick a lodger
across the street from Gerard.
They dined together at the table d'hote of Dick's inn, and then returned
to Gerard's house, where the marvellous coincidence had to be discussed
over again when Gerard's sister called in the afternoon. It was his
custom to receive her in the glover's back parlor, and on this occasion
Dick was of course invited to be present. Not until she had gone back to
the palace, did Dick return to Lord George, who had been mystified at
his absence.
"I have found a secretary," said his lordship, who also had passed a
great part of the day out of the hotel, "in the shape of a clerk at the
French resident's office, who has got into trouble over cards and a
woman and has to seek other pastures. But the vacancy he will leave is
already provided for. I don't know what can be done for you if you are
determined to remain here."
"I shall find something," said Dick; "and, meanwhile, I've taken a room
at a cheaper hotel, where I can live for some time on the money I have.
But I am as grateful to you--"
"As if I had ever really done anything for you," broke in Lord George,
who liked expressions of gratitude to be cut short. He supposed that
Dick's "some time" meant several weeks, whereas it really meant three
days.
The next afternoon there was a review of the first battalion of guards,
in that part of the park which lay between the summer palace and the
menagerie. Lord George remained at Cassel on the pretext of a desire to
see an exhibition of target-shooting that was to be given in connection
with the review, by certain of the guardsmen. Dick guessed that his
lordship's real purpose in tarrying was to make further effort towards
obtaining employment for him.
The two met at Lord George's hotel (Dick having already moved to the inn
opposite the glover's), and rode on hired horses to the reviewing-ground.
It was a fine day, warm and sunny. The Landgrave and his chief officers
were present on horseback. The Landgravine and several ladies were in
carriages, at that side of the park which bordered on the Fulda and at
which was the menagerie. Dick and Lord George took station, with several
other horsemen, near the Landgrave's party. When the shooting at mark
began, Dick found himself near the place where the men stood while
firing. The competitors were drawn up in line, at right angles with the
line formed by the rest of the battalion. This latter line formed the
western side of an imaginary square, the targets were midway in the
south side of the same square, the east side was formed by the menagerie
and the carriages, while the north side began with the line of
marksmen, and was continued eastward by the groups of horsemen. After a
few shots had been fired, Dick observed that the Landgravine and other
ladies had got out of their carriages and were standing at some distance
from them, so as to see better the effect of each shot.
Some one had just called Dick's attention to the fact that Mlle. F----,
the Landgrave's Parisian mistress, was standing within a few feet of the
Landgrave's wife, when suddenly a terrible roar came from the menagerie,
followed a moment later by a great four-footed, striped figure, which
bounded into sight, then crouched and looked around with ferocious
curiosity.
"The tiger has broken out!" an officer exclaimed, while everybody gazed
at the animal as if struck dumb with sudden amazement and alarm.
A man rushed wildly out from the menagerie after the tiger,--he was the
keeper, through whose carelessness the beast had escaped. At this sight
the women began to scream and to run back to the carriages. In a moment
or two, the Landgravine was left alone. She stood looking at the animal
as if fascinated, or as if paralyzed with terror.
The keeper threw himself before the tiger. It felled him with a blow,
drew the blood from his face with its claws, and began to tear his flesh
with its teeth. The women shrieked with horror. The animal looked up,
glided across the body of the man, and made swiftly towards the
Landgravine.
A kind of shuddering moan went up from the whole field. Some officers
dashed forward on their horses, as if to intervene between the
Landgravine and the beast, though the great distance made the attempt a
hopeless one.
As the tiger made its spring, a shot rang out. The beast gave a howl of
pain, dropped sidewise, and lay still, at the Landgravine's feet,
pierced through the brain.
The officers looked around amazed, and saw Dick Wetheral, afoot,
lowering a smoking gun. He had slid from his horse at the tiger's first
appearance, run to the nearest marksman, seized the loaded weapon, and
fired as he had fired at many a running bear in Pennsylvania.
"Who fired?" cried the Landgrave, too deeply moved to say more,--for a
prince does not wish his wife to die a violent death in his presence and
the court's, however estranged he may be from her.
"I took the liberty, your highness," said Dick, handing back the gun to
the guardsman, and approaching the Landgrave.
"You have saved the Landgravine's life," said his highness. "I lack
words in which to express my gratitude. You shall hear from me."
And the Landgrave rode quickly over to the Landgravine, who was being
supported to her carriage.
"You don't need a Good Samaritan any longer. Your fortune is made!" said
Lord George, as Dick remounted.